Wednesday, March 6, 2019

A few thoughts about Facebook

Are you on one or more social networking sites?  I signed on to Facebook several years ago when it was quite popular and from what I read with over a billion users I guess it's still going strong.  Although others are gaining fast with Instagram for example at about 100 million and growing.  Instagram is apparently the favorite among the younger crowd or so I've heard.  My two teenage grand daughters use that. 

I got on Facebook because I wanted to keep in touch with distant relatives.  Then I posted a bunch of class pictures from my 32 year career as a teacher and before you know it former students, now young men and women, jumped on board and friended me.  It was a lot of fun seeing what they were doing now and how well they were.  I'm also friends with a lot of former colleagues who I otherwise would lose touch with. 

Then there are high school classmates and finally "real" friends-not the acquaintances we call friends. 

Even with all that I only have about 145 friends.  I see where other people have 5, 6, even 7 hundred 'friends'.  Many people haven't a clue who their friends are.  They just keep friending people for the high numbers. I get tons of friend requests from people I don't know.  I of course ignore them.

Another thing is it amazes me to see the various things people post.  Anywhere from political commentary to jokes to math puzzles and riddles (one of my favorites to post) to romance problems to requests for advice as to what to buy or who to buy it from.  I read recently where one lady posted a description of two houses  she and her husband were down to to purchase and she wanted to know which one they should buy since they couldn't decide!  There's a lot of other stuff there too but it seems to me that a lot of those things are pretty personal.  Do you really care what a bunch of strangers think?  After all, as I pointed out, even though you call them 'friends' they're not really. 

Anyway, I'll keep using it for the time being.  Whenever I encounter someone I find annoying, I simply block their posts without necessarily unfriending them.  That way they don't know I can't see their obnoxious posts. 

Bye for now, friend!


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